LETTER from PARIS: Someone’s in the Kitchen with Roma, Just Not John

By John Sherman

Roma was a great home cook. I was born to take coats and kiss elderly women. She was an account executive at an advertising agency. I was a staffer in Congress. Roma took cooking lessons a decade earlier from the mother of Singapore’s dictator. I worked as a summer busboy at a San Diego joint called the Bean Pot. So why not open a restaurant? It’s a natural. We started sensibly, serving a prix fixe dinner on weekends just to guests staying in our six rooms at the Ashby Inn in Paris. The only snapshots of opening night were forgetting to buy guest checks, the bartender in a Nixon mask and dining chairs of red velvet with gold finials we rented from an Indian restaurant. We got through it. The absurdly low price gave some leeway for errors. That was October. Our business plan was sending us right down the chute.

The next month I walked by as Roma answered the phone, followed by a pause, and then, “Well, yes. I guess around one. How many people? And your name?” That call put us in the restaurant business. Are we open for Thanksgiving? You bet.

Roma was in the kitchen with a helper and a dishwasher. I was behind the bar, where I should not have been. It was a collision of not putting face to drink tab—-and not knowing anything about mixed drinks. “I’m sorry, we don’t do martinis.” I could pour beer, wine, and bourbon.

Among the 25 or so guests was Michele, an Italian friend and owner of Piccolo Mondo restaurant in Washington, and his family. He wore mohair head to toe. In the midst of the disaster in the taproom, he whispered, shaking his head, “You in trouble in the kitchen.”

I watched Michele shuck his jacket and head for the kitchen. About fifteen minutes later he came down and ordered: “Get them in their seats. Now.”

Bar tabs left in disarray, I got people seated just as Michele appeared with three plates of turkey dinner up each arm—-singing—-to applause. Boffo.

I don’t remember hearing complaints about the $25 charge and the hit-and-miss drink tabs.

The guest rooms were booked that night, the first time by strangers. We, the afternoon’s survivors, gathered in the taproom after the last dinner guest had departed (Michele, with the best bottle on our paltry wine list) and concluded the day a partial success. Let’s drink to it.

The affair suddenly ended with the ear-splitting whooping of the fire alarm. A false alarm, certainly. I raced upstairs to shut it down, only to be met by smoke pouring out of the Fireplace Room. Standing in the open door was a specter that will never fade. A woman of six feet, white hair, and a head to toe gold lame robe enveloped in smoke.

Just before we opened, my father asked in his gentle way: “Who the hell would let perfect strangers light fires in your house?”

The next day, I removed the dampers from all fireplaces. The incident was regrettable for the general disturbance—-and more so for the deep rebates on the guest checks.

All in all, it would be hard to call the day a “soft opening.”

Months later, Roma and I decided to expand our narrow operation to Sunday brunch. We made a list of what we would like to see on a buffet table, beginning with a huge Smithfield ham.

And, certainly, our gravlax of salmon. A sandwich of two slabs of skin-on Atlantic salmon filled with loads of sea salt, dill and splashes of vodka. More salt and dill on the top filet. Then press down with two 28-ounce cans of whole tomatoes. Let cure for three days. Before serving, wash the sides to get rid of the salt. Much more refined than smoked.

Roma and I quickly discovered that we were not meant to work together. Our perspectives, as complete tyros, too often collided—-from how much to charge for apple crisp to the colors of server uniforms (uniquely, black and white).

Only once a week—-every Sunday—-did we attempt to harmonize our work. Making omelettes.

The trick was a very hot pan. The standard was no brown marks on the outside. (Except for one of our favorite customers, whose order was, “Just kill it.”) The most popular omelette was salmon, sour cream, chopped onion, capers and dill.

Roma could cook two at a time. I was a onepanner, but moved up and down the line carving ham and slicing salmon so thin you could read Sunday’s headlines through it. I have the scars to prove it. We later estimated that, between us, we made around 49,000 omelettes over our tenure.

Last on our list was oysters on the half shell. I went down to the Maine Avenue seafood market to find a shucker. “You gotta see Harry.” Harry turned out to be the Fagan of shuckers; he controlled the fraternity. He didn’t want to do business so far out in the country. Then I found Rudy Watts. He worked for Marriott and had Sundays off. He was Black and built like a linebacker. His voice was baritone. He would wear a black leather cap and an ever-changing collection of ribald T-shirts: “I work harder than an ugly stripper.”

Our arrangement: we provided the oysters and he would drive out the bagels. Our oysters were Blue Points out of Long Island, where I grew up.

Rudy and a three-foot bag of warm bagels would pull into the drive one minute either side of noon. He had a monster grey Cadillac. Like any maestro, he sat in the back seat, with his nephew, Smitty, at the wheel. His tools, a thin, wooden handled oyster knife and an S-shaped lead block. Rudy became as popular as his oysters, which were carefully laid out on ice.

He also had a quiet side business—-that in a flat out three-minute race he could shuck faster that you can eat them.

After the first year, we raised the price from $12 to $15.

Reviewing our financials, our accountant suggested that the next Sunday we might stand out by the front door and hand each arrival a $10 bill. “That’s the way to make some real money,” he said.